1. Field of the Invention
Aspects of the present invention generally relate to an inkjet recording apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
As a system of supplying ink to a discharge port of an inkjet recording apparatus, a system of mounting an ink tank that contains ink on a carriage and supplying the ink, and a system of connecting an ink tank and an inkjet recording head by a supply tube and supplying the ink are known. In the case of a large-size inkjet recording apparatus that records a large image such as a poster, a large-capacitance ink tank is desired in order to reduce the frequency of replacing the ink tank. However, it is not preferable to mount such a large-capacitance ink tank on a carriage. Therefore, in the case of such an inkjet recording apparatus, a system of supplying ink via a supply tube is used.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2002-307712 discloses an inkjet recording apparatus capable of temporarily storing ink, supplied from an ink tank via an ink supply tube, in an ink storage section provided in a recording head. Japanese Paten Laid-Open No. 2002-307712 describes that more and more air bubbles are accumulated in an ink storage section as a recording operation is performed, which consequently results in incapability to discharge ink from a discharge port. It is disclosed to perform a recovery operation in every certain period.
An inkjet recording apparatus can perform recording on a record medium, such as an advertisement poster, which has a large size of A0, A1, or the like. Even during a recording operation of recording an image with such a size, it is necessary to perform control to prevent the occurrence of a discharging failure caused by air bubbles filling an ink storage section during recording.
However, as in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2002-307712,the method of performing a recovery operation of the recording head in every certain period may not be able to perform a recovery operation at accurate timing. That is, ink may be discharged even when air bubbles are not accumulated in the ink storage section, or, on the contrary, ink may not be discharged due to the effect of air bubbles during a recording operation.